THE HOURS (O, PG-13): In 1925 Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway was designed as an experiment in literary form, limiting the time to a single day and interweaving the thoughts and experiences of two strangers—a rich woman planning a party and a shell-shocked veteran who commits suicide. The method was more important than the meaning.
Now, after being metamorphosed in Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and adapted into film—where voiceover and intercutting techniques are easy and commonplace—the emphasis is on the content. That (via Cunningham and screenwriter David Hare) is gloomy stuff, centering on Woolf’s own life problems, her creative angst, mental illness, bisexuality and suicidal urges, as reflected in the lives of two American women, one and two generations later.
In 1951 Los Angeles, Laura (Julianne Moore), a pregnant and depressed suburbanite, reads Woolf’s novel and ponders suicide even as she and her little boy struggle to bake a birthday cake for her husband. In 2001 New York, Clarissa (Meryl Streep), a literary editor, plans a party to honor the ex-lover she’s been helping for years, a writer who is dying of AIDS.
The third story follows Woolf herself (Nicole Kidman) in 1923 in England. She writes, broods and clashes with her caregiving husband about the various aspects of her illness.
The interwoven stories share obvious common elements: the single-day time frame, party preparation and deeply stressed protagonists. Homosexuality and suicide are factors in all three.
Like many Irish, I’m attracted to sadness. But here, with deep human issues and utterly no religious context, it’s like needles under the fingernails.
The artistry is superb, especially by the actresses portraying misery. (Kidman won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Woolf.) A major script flaw is that it requires audience background: You won’t walk in off the mall and have much of a clue, oddly, on Woolf’s specialty, which is what’s going on inside their heads. Director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) treats everyone with compassion. Philip Glass’s music unifies and adds emotional wallop. Obvious moral difficulties, but the taste is scrupulous; for mature viewers, with reservations.
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